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Tag Archives: Portugal

In terms of the number of people vaccinated against measles, Europeans are already below the safety limit.

WHO requires the vaccination of at least 95 per cent of the young children population for community resistance to be preserved, offering protection also to people without resistance to a given disease. These are primarily people who have not been vaccinated because of medical contraindications. Only in five countries of the European Union is over 95 per cent of the population vaccinated with two doses. Thus, in Poland for example, where vaccination against measles is mandatory, there were 34,000 refusals to vaccinate in the first half of this year, that is more than in the whole of the previous year. There have been almost 140,000 instances where Polish parents refused to vaccinate their child over the past eight years. Continue reading →

PARIS/BERLIN (Own report) – Germany is participating in a new European military formation that was launched yesterday. Originally a French proposal, the European Intervention Initiative (EII) will be open to EU and Non-EU member countries to join. Expanding the existing EU military cooperation (“PESCO”) with a new operational component, the EII should facilitate rapid decisions on joint military interventions. A first meeting of military commanders from the hitherto nine participant states is set for September. The EII includes Great Britain, which plans to continue its military cooperation with the continent, even after Brexit, as well as Denmark. Since the coordination of military interventions is now officially set outside of the EU framework, Denmark can sidestep the opt-out from EU military policy, it had once granted its population. Referred to by experts as a European “coalition of the willing,” it goes hand in hand with the EU Commission’s militarization plans worth billions and the high-cost German-French arms projects.

The predictions have come true about the emergence of a new defense group that will change the European security environment. On June 25, the defense chiefs from nine EU countries signed off on the creation of a new force called the European Intervention Initiative (EII), which is spearheaded by French President Emmanuel Macron. The new organization will have a common budget and a doctrine establishing its guidelines for acting and joint planning for contingencies in which NATO may not get involved. The group includes the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Estonia, Spain, and Portugal. Italy may join soon. The initiative is not tied to the EU’s Common European Defense, which includes the PESCO agreement as well as NATO. Great Britain has always opposed the idea of creating a European defense alliance, fearing it would undermine transatlantic unity. Now it has done an about-face, as the rifts within the US grow deeper. Continue reading →

Leopard II battle tank is pictured in action at the Oberlausitz training area in Weisskeissel. Source: Reuters

Nine European states – France, the UK, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain and Portugal are going to establish a joint military intervention force, France’s Defense Minister Florence Parly has told the French newspaper Figaro.

“Defence Europe requires a common strategic culture … The deadlines and decisions in the EU are still much too long compared to the urgency that can arise from a critical situation in a country where Europeans would consider that there is a strong stake for their security,” she said.Continue reading →

Russian President Vladimir Putin said a naval standing force, including warships with Kalibr long-range land attack cruise missiles, will be permanently deployed in the Mediterranean Sea. The statement was made at a meeting with top military officials and defense industry leaders that took place in Sochi on May 16. One of the missions is delivering strikes against terrorist targets in Syria. 102 expeditions of ships and submarines are planned in 2018. The force will go through intensive training.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has become a much different force in comparison to what it was just three years ago. Since 2015, the year the operation in Syria was launched, it has received 15 new ships, including two frigates and six conventional submarines armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. With S-400 and S-300V4 air defense systems, Krasukha-4 electronic warfare systems and shore-based anti-ship Bastion batteries deployed on the Syrian coast, the ships in Eastern Mediterranean operate in a relatively safe environment. Kalibr missiles have already been fired from frigates and submarines at terrorist targets in Syria. Continue reading →

The EU on Nov.13 officially launched a new era in defense cooperation with a program of joint military investment in equipment, research and development, known as permanent structured cooperation, or PESCO. Foreign and defense ministers gathered at a signing ceremony in Brussels to represent 23 EU governments joining the pact, which is to become legally binding when signed by heads of state at EU summit in mid-December. With so many ministers signing, approval seems a given. From now on, the EU will have a more coherent role in tackling international crises, while reducing the reliance on the United States. Continue reading →

BERLIN (Own report) – The first telephone call between the German chancellor and the US president was flanked by appeals for the EU to close ranks. Following Saturday’s call, both parties declared that they would “deepen” their bilateral relations. However, Berlin is preparing to assert its own interests offensively vis-à-vis Russia – also with the EU’s help. This is why the EU must finally “close ranks,” as German politicians are demanding. On Saturday, on his first foreign visit as German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel met his Parisian counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault. His vigorous insistence “that Germany and France demonstrate they have common positions on nearly all issues” was also aimed at closing the EU’s ranks. While Gabriel was visiting France, the seven southern European countries’ heads of states and governments – including the French president – were meeting in Lisbon to determine their own positions, also regarding their economic policy. In view of British Prime Minster Theresa May’s recent visit to the USA, observers note that the Brexit is creating “a second geopolitical pole in Europe,”and “for Germany, which has become accustomed to speak in the name of Europe, […] this is not a favorable development.”Continue reading →

The European Central Bank (ECB), creator of the Euro, currently claims to hold 504.8 tonnes of gold reserves. These gold holdings are reflected on the ECB balance sheet and arose from transfers made to the ECB by Euro member national central banks, mainly in January 1999 at the birth of the Euro. As of the end of December 2015, these ECB gold reserves were valued on the ECB balance sheet at market prices and amounted to €15.79 billion.

The ECB very recently confirmed to BullionStar that its gold reserves are stored across 5 international locations. However, the ECB also confirmed that it does not physically audit its gold, nor will it divulge a bar list / weight list of these gold bar holdings.

Questions and Answers

BullionStar recently put a number of questions to the European Central Bank about the ECB’s gold holdings. The ECB Communications Directorate replied to these questions with answers that appear to include a number of facts about the ECB gold reserves which have not previously been published. The questions put to the ECB and its responses are listed below (underlining added): Continue reading →

Out with the old, in with the new… Europe, as it is aging, no longer renews its generations, and instead welcomes massive numbers of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, who are going to replace the native Europeans, and who are bringing cultures with radically different values about sex, science, political power, culture, economy and the relation between God and man.

In one generation, Europe will be unrecognizable.

Eastern Europe now has “the largest population loss in modern history”, while Germany overtook Japan by having the world’s lowest birth rate.

Europe, as it is aging, no longer renews its generations, and instead welcomes massive numbers of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia, who are going to replace the native Europeans, and who are bringing cultures with radically different values about sex, science, political power, culture, economy and the relation between God and man.

Deaths that exceed births might sound like science fiction, but they are now Europe’s reality. It just happened. During 2015, 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, while 5.2 million persons died, meaning that the EU for the first time in modern history recorded a negative natural change in its population. The numbers come from Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union), which since 1961 has been counting Europe’s population. It is official.

THE eurozone’s economic growth is set for another blow in the coming years, as its ageing workforce is a crisis in waiting, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.

On top of high unemployment and huge debt levels, policymakers could have to deal with tumbling productivity from workers, according to research by the Washington-based fund.

It is already known the number of eurozone retirees compared to people of working age is on track to ballon over the next couple of decades – putting a larger strain on state resources. Continue reading →

Going against the insane immigration policies of Germany and Brussels is costly.

CRACKS in the EU were deepening today as it emerged fines against favoured nations were being scrapped while other countries were expected to stump up punitive sums after slipping into debt.

Last week German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schauble, is reported to have lobbied several commissioners not to impose fines of 0.2 per cent of GDP on Spain and Portugal after they failed to reduce their fiscal deficit to 3 per cent GDP.

Spain’s deficit stood at 5.1 percent last year and Portugal’s at 4.4 percent, and under Union rules both nations have failed to take “effective action” to bring them down.Continue reading →

In the US Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential nomination. However, Republican convention delegates are plotting to deny Trump the nomination that the people have voted him. The Republican political establishment is showing an unwillingness to accept democratic outcomes.

The people chose, but their choice is unacceptable to the establishment which intends to substitute its choice for the people’s choice.Continue reading →

A Russian mole has been uncovered inside NATO intelligence. What does this mean for Western security?

Last weekend, in the latest development in the secret espionage struggle between Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin and the West, a major Russian spy was arrested in Italy. On Saturday, Frederico Carvalhão Gil, a senior intelligence official from Portugal, was picked up by Italian police along with his Russian intelligence handler, whom he was meeting clandestinely in Rome.

Although Portugal is hardly a big player in the global spy game, it has been a member of the Atlantic Alliance since its founding in 1949, and Lisbon’s intelligence services are full members of the West’s secret spy network. Finding a mole like Mr. Carvalhão in any NATO security service is a serious matter for the whole alliance. Continue reading →